


Reverence for the Unknown

by charleybradburies



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Red Wedding, Children, Community: 1_million_words, Community: hc_bingo, F/M, Family Secrets, House Stark, Kings & Queens, Mates, Mating, No Dialogue, Post - Red Wedding, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Protective Siblings, Robb Lives, Royalty, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Siblings, The North remembers, Were-Creatures, Werewolf Mates, Werewolf Sex, Werewolves, Winterfell, Wolf Pack, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4366187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The people of Winterfell don’t know their rulers as well as they think they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reverence for the Unknown

**Author's Note:**

> For Hurt/Comfort Bingo | Prompt: Secret Identity Discovered

The rulers of the North are open and loving toward their subjects, good-hearted and accepting of the presence of troubles and their responsibility in alleviating them, but the people of Winterfell don’t know their rulers as well as they think they do.

They know that Princess Arya’s refused to marry, and that King Robb doesn’t force her to, and that she’s taken a great interest in weaponry. They don’t know that while she spends a great deal of time prancing around Winterfell and Winter Town she’s also fucking the blacksmith.

They know that Lord Jojen Reed remains at Prince Bran's side, named a ward as a result of their friendship during Bran's travels away from Winterfell. They don't know that Reed never makes use of his decorated chambers, that they are only a cover for the real reason that he stays. 

They don’t know how Princess Sansa managed to get advantage over and slay Ramsay Snow. They don’t know that the wolf pack that came to her rescue didn’t come to the castle by accident. They don’t know that it was she who’d howled out for her siblings’ direwolves. They certainly don't know that it was her own sharp-toothed jaws that had ripped out his throat.

They don’t know how King Robb survived the Red Wedding, only that he had. 

They don’t know that the Alphas of the direwolves are anything more than moody and unsociable, only showing themselves for moments at a time. They don’t know that it’s anything more than a coincidence that to some they look suspiciously like larger versions of the wolves that had once belonged to their King and his eldest sister. 

They know that Princess Sansa’s been declared infertile, that both she and her brother the King have refused to marry again, that their brother Rickon’s children have been designated Robb’s heirs even before Princess Lyanna has gotten with child. 

They know that the pack of direwolves that roams Winterfell and its surroundings continues to grow annually. Most people have made the connection that the alpha male and female mate and breed each year. Some of them know that their mating is rough and loud, that it would be called passionate and lawless were they human.

Almost no one knows that they are - that it is their King and his sister Sansa who sneak off to the godswood for hours at a time and fuck each other sore, that Princess Sansa wears dresses that had been Lady Catelyn’s so that their larger size can allow for her maternity going unnoticed, until the alpha female goes into labor. 

They don’t know that Princess Sansa stays upon a blanket in the godswood for weeks after the pups have arrived, nursing them and familiarizing them with their brothers and sisters as well as their elders Nymeria, Summer, and Shaggydog. Some of them know that even human Princess Sansa is _not_ actually infertile, that for the year she spends sheltered within the castle walls she’s swelled with a human son whose presence is unexplainable. 

Many who know of her pregnancy know that King Robb worries greatly over his sister’s health during the time that she’s with child; if any know that the child is his, they make no remark.

That is, until soon after the babe is born, and the blacksmith Gendry makes the mistake of telling Robb that he wishes his son the best - but even then, Robb finds that there’s no need to threaten or bribe him for his silence, as he cares greatly for them all, not in that they are his rulers, but that they are the family of the woman he himself loves. 

Very few people know that Princess Arya falls with child the next spring, and even fewer know that King Robb personally grants her permission to marry her lover, though she invites many of the servants to their exchanging of vows in the godswood. 

But _all_ of Westeros knows that House Stark as its own unified entity declare the princesses’ children Robb’s most immediate heirs, and that when, years later, he is taken by injury in the same direwolf brawl that takes Shaggydog as well, it’s Sansa’s son Eddard - indeed the spitting image of his grandfather as he had been in his youth - who accedes to the throne of the North.


End file.
